Purna Sen

https://www.labour.org.uk/brighton-pavilion-purna-sen

Brighton Pavilion, Purna Sen


Purna Sen is Labour’s candidate for Brighton Pavilion.

Purna is Deputy Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the London School of Economics, where she previously set up and ran a leadership programme and ran an MSc degree. She is also Chair of the board of the Kaleidoscope Trust (working with LGBT activists in hostile environments), a member of the Board of RISE, (providing services on violence against women in Brighton) and an Advisor to Justice for Gay Africans. She has served as Head of Human Rights for the Commonwealth Secretariat and as Director for the Asia-Pacific Programme at Amnesty International. She has taught in adult, further and higher education.

Purna’s work has covered various aspects of discrimination and inequality, in the UK and beyond. She has been an activist and campaigner, conducted research, advised governments, produced publications on violence against women, human rights, trafficking, sexuality and sexual control, social development issues and race equality in the UK. Her over-riding concern is that those who are politically or economically marginalised find a respected place in society and can enjoy lives of dignity.

Purna has worked with several women's groups in the UK and elsewhere such as Womankind (UK), Jordanian Women’s Union (with whom she worked to establish the first refuge for abused women in Jordan). She has consulted with organisations including Article 19 and the British Council, and been on the management and advisory groups of NGOs including the Refugee Women’s Resource Project and Southall Black Sisters.

Purna came though the state education system and chose to send her children to state schools, as she believes that those who eat, play and learn together go on to build a society at ease with itself.